Addressing the dynamics of power in early modern societies, this book challenges the existing tendency to see past societies in terms of binary oppositions—such as male/female, rich/poor, rulers/ruled. Drawing on recent social theory, the essays offer a series of micro-sociologies of power in early modern society, ranging from the politics of age, gender and class to the politics of state-building in the post-Reformation confessional state. Its findings also have relevance for thinking about inequality in present-day societies.